设计与产品worrydream.com编辑精选
用于思考不可想象之物的媒介
Media for Thinking the Unthinkable
2013 — 2020，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Bret Victor 的这个页面围绕《Media for Thinking the Unthinkable》展开，探讨我们用来思考和表达复杂问题的媒介，以及以文字/符号为主的传统方式可能如何限制思考。它主张设计更好的表示与呈现方式，让原本难以想象的问题变得可被理解和操作。
为什么经久不衰：它把表示方式、界面和工具视为思维本身的一部分，多年后仍能激发人重新审视自己用来思考和表达的工具。
HN 评论精选
赞赏他连内容呈现都认真设计，体现了设计思考的一致性。
Bret Victor 如此认真地设计自己内容的呈现方式，令人受启发；在我看来，这是他区别于其他人的原因之一——很多优秀的设计思考者也会随便让演讲、幻灯片或文章以默认形式出现，就像哲学家在现实生活中放下了自己爱追问的态度。
dmazin查看英文原文
How inspiring it is that Bret Victor diligently designs the presentation of his content: to me this is one of the reasons he's apart from others, where often even a great design thinker simply leaves a talk or slides or an essay to be presented however it will, like a philosopher who sets aside her inquisitive attitude in real life.
语言符号虽非唯一媒介，但因其指涉性和便于切换模块化，可能是最适合人类、甚至理论上最优的思考方式。
反方观点：他指出我们的技术基于书写，但还可以更深一层：符号书写（包括数学记号）基于口语，而大脑有专门处理语言的结构，就像有视觉中心一样。这种基础根深蒂固，很多人认为它与智慧本质相关。因此，即使它不是理论上最好的方式，也可能是最适合我们的方式。不过我要论证它确实是理论上最好的方式：语言描述相比图像的关键优势在于它表示或指涉而非直接展示，因此能紧凑并省略不必要的细节。视觉系统也可以有层级、缩放或隐藏，但根本难题在于选择层级，也就是系统如何模块化；同一系统常有多种模块化方式，适合不同用途或不同侧面。我的观点是，语言上切换模块化更容易。
6ren查看英文原文
Counterpoint: he notes our techniques are based on writing, but it goes deeper: our symbolic writing (including mathematical notation) is based on speech, for which we have dedicated linguistic structures in our brains, much as we have a visual center. It is deep-seated, and many have argued fundamentally entwined with sapience. Thus, even if it's not theoretically the best way, it might be the best way for us. But I'm going to argue it is the theoretically best way: Linguistic descriptions have a key advantage over pictorial in that they represent or reference rather than show. This enables them to be compact, and omit unnecessary detail. (Of course, showing rather than telling is a strength of visual representation). Yes, you can have a hierarchy of visual systems, and zoom-in or hide. But a fundamental problem here I think is in choosing the hierarchy - that is, the way the system is modularized. Different modularizations of the same system are often appropriate for different uses of that system, or for considering different aspects of it. For even a slightly complex system, there are a huge number of different modularizations possible, and not all of them are useful. Often, you'll start with a poor one, and eventually have insights moving you towards the ideal one. (Of course, sometimes the "right" modularization is obvious, especially for well-known families of problems). All this is very difficult. My point is that it is easier to switch modularities linguistically than pictorially, by changing your concepts. Without the right modularity, it's difficult to pictorially show just the aspects of interest instead of the whole picture. In contrast, one can linguistically omit detail by referencing it (implicitly, as a separate module). Maybe it's possible to do this visually, though I suspect it thereby would have become linguistic! [Though the above is a counterpoint, I'm very impressed with the talk. He's working both ends of abstraction, with concrete working software demonstrating cool useful practical techniques that, while not universal, would be helpful in many domains; and also framing it within, and using it to illustrate, the deep universal and philosophical idea of unthinkable thoughts. BTW e.g. uncomputable numbers.]
人类思维依赖把抽象事物空间化，所以纸笔/二维界面仍有根本价值。
到了某个阶段，限制我们的可能不是输入（媒介），而是我们思考方式本身的局限。人类通过空间化来思考（这里用 Julian Jaynes 的定义），这也是纸笔及其电子等价物经久不衰的原因——它是我们头脑中过程的二维版本。引文大意：物理行为世界中本无空间性质的事物，在意识中被赋予空间性，否则我们无法意识到它们；时间就是明显例子，你只能通过空间化来思考时间。
hliyan查看英文原文
At some point, I think we'll be limited by limitations in the way we think, rather than the inputs (media). Humans think by spatializing[1] (I'm using Julian Jaynes' definition here). Which is why pen-and-paper and electronic analogs thereof endure -- it's a 2D version of what goes on in our mind. [1] http://www.julianjaynes.org/origin-of-consciousness_english_book-one-chapter-two.php Moreover, things that in the physical-behavioral world do not have a spatial quality are made to have such in consciousness. Otherwise we cannot be conscious of them. This we shall call spatialization. Time is an obvious example. If I ask you to think of the last hundred years, you may have a tendency to excerpt the matter in such a way that the succession of years is spread out, probably from left to right. But of course there is no left or right in time. There is only before and after, and these do not have any spatial properties whatever — except by analog. You cannot, absolutely cannot think of time except by spatializing it.
算法只有通过界面变得易用才能释放力量，UI 进步本身就是进步。
有一段让我先笑后深思：他展示用散文写的算法，再用现代数学记号写。真正的飞跃是什么？用户界面。到处都能看到同一模式：一小组聪明人开发出某种技术或算法，然后大量技术工人逐步让它易用。不仅是产品消费者层面的 UI，也包括构建前一层 UI 的人、构建他们工具的人，一层层往下。进步不是算法，也不是易用性，而是算法能力与其易用性的结合。最终，用户界面的进步就是进步本身。
slashnull查看英文原文
There's that bit which made me chuckle at first, then think. A lot. When he shows an algorithm written in prose, then in modern mathematical notation. The real leap forward here? User interface. Everywhere I look, I see instances of that same pattern: One person or small team of very clever people develops a given technique or algorithm, and a gigantic army of technological lumberjacks go out and progressively make it easy to use. And it's not just UI as in "the paying consumer of a product"; it's UI as in the person which will build the previous UI, and to person which builds that person's tools, and so on, turtles all the way down. Progress is not algorithms, progress is not ease of use; it's (power of an algorithm / ease of its use). In the end, progress in user interface is progress, _period_.
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